In case any of you had heard on the news about a shooting on Friday in Gloucester where I live, this took place in the Matson part of Gloucester which is well away from me. Matson is a run down part of Gloucester and on the whole, only people who can't afford to live elsewhere live there.

The victim is in a stable condition in hospital - the accused has just been released on bail. It sounds as if it was an ongoing feud between criminals.

Gun crime is rare in this part of the country and so makes local headlines when it happens, particularly at present for obvious reasons.

I think it's fair to say that the heatwave is well and truly over. We're back to the good old British Summer. I think many of us will see a fair amount of rain over the next couple of weeks, apart from the South East, but the gardens certainly could do with it. Locally we can expect 20 cm over the next few days, then 3 dryish days at the start of next week, then 40 cm in the latter part of next week. And a top temparature on most days below 20C.
(But no winds over 300mph )

At the weekend I ordered a jacket online. They always subsequently send an email to let me know that they had now sent whatever I had ordered

So I checked my emails again today (I do it a few times each day) and I opened a message from them to say the jacket was on the way.

As I was reading it, there was a knock on the door and there was the jacket.

I told the deliveryman that I had just read the email. congratulated him on the fastest delivery of all time, said that I was impressed with his speed, but hoped he hadn't broken the speed limit.

A hand-coloured print of Edvard Munch's Madonna was sold at auction for £1.25 million making it the most expensive print ever sold in the UK. This is a link to the BBC news article which shows the print. Anyone who is familiar with his "The Scream" will be able to see that it is by him. As the Madonna is topless I am unable to show the image here, though it's unlikely to cause offence.

My all time favourite April Fools trick from the BBC 2 years ago



and I have sent Lori her own copy as I know she loves penguins.

This is the post which will get me to the 25,000 channel points mark. Yippee!
I will have to go and celebrate this personal milestone in Gagajoyjoy land becuase on the old C4 forum this would presumably have meant that I would have got a twinkling star of some sort.

A New Zealand company has been working on robotic legs for paraplegics. This links to the BBC news article which includes the first public demonstration. At present it seems slow and noisy but it does offer some hope for those confined to a wheelchair, and hopefully future development should improve the performance.

Congratulations El Loro.
You are already a star to us.

If I'm a star, then as you have over 110,000 channel points you must be a supernova.

Today's odd story taken from the BBC news site:
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[// <![CDATA[ $render("page-bookmark-links","page-bookmark-links-head",{ position:"top", site:'News', headline:'BBC News - Germans take cultural party onto motorway', storyId:'10676728', sectionId:'99123', url:'http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10676728', edition:'Domestic' }); // ]]></script>

Germans take cultural party onto motorway

Germans are redefining the normal purpose of a motorway by laying on an enormous party on one of the country's busiest stretches of "Autobahn".

At least 1m people are expected to drop in on a banquet being held on Sunday on a 60km stretch of motorway.

Only pedestrians and cyclists are now allowed on this part of the A40/B1.

The event is part of cultural celebrations in the western Ruhr area, Germany's former industrial heartland.

The party organisers said they had given away 20,000 tables for "the longest banquet in the world" in the middle of the motorway between the cities of Dortmund and Duisburg.

People are set to eat, drink, dance and perform plays along the traffic artery until Sunday evening.

Organisers also expected newly-weds and their guests to sit down at the world's longest wedding banquet.

One resident living next to the A40 in Essen, Waltraud Weber, told German public broadcaster WDR that she was pleased to have had an unusually quiet night. "Now we will go and party with our children", Ms Weber said.

At midday German media reported that the A40 temporarily had to be closed to cyclists due to traffic jams and overcrowding.

The party, called Still Life, is part of the region's celebrations as Cultural Capital of Europe 2010.

The article finally asks for anyone who has had a party on the A40 to send in their story. If I had a party on the UK A40 which is within walking distance of where I live, I would get squashed very quickly.

There was an article on the radio this morning about the finding in Sri Lanka of a siting of an animal which had been belived to be extinct. This is a photo of the animal.

The first known photograph of a rare primate that was feared extinct has been captured by researchers in central Sri Lanka.

The Horton Plains slender loris, which has short, sturdy limbs and long fur, was tracked down in highland forest.

The red eyes are because as with other lorises, they are nocturnal. As the interviewee said on the radio, he is cute  I would give him a but I'd squash him.

On Friday I drove through a little village called Saul. The road between Saul and Epney runs by the River Severn, and I suspect gets flooded from time to time. As a result the road has to be one of the most pot-holed stretches of road in the country. The council are supposed to be resurfacing it soon, which is just as well.

Anyway I noticed on Saturday that my parrotmobile was making a bit more noise than usual and this was worse on Sunday. I didn't use in on Monday, but drove into town yesterday. By now it was really noisy, and I guessed from the direction of the sound that it was the exhaust. I couldn't do anything about it then as later I had to go to Cheltenham.

I got to Cheltenham and got back but it was obvious to me as I was coming back over some sets of speed bumps that the exhaust was not long for this world. I could see pedestrians turning round to see what was going on. When I looked at the exhaust it was obviously at an angle from where it should be, but it was too late in the evening to be able to get it sorted.

So this morning I took it to the closest tyre & exhaust place. They checked it and confirmed the obvious. I flew back home on foot (1.5 miles in 22.5 minutes = 4mph - not bad for a parrot ), and have just received the call to say it's ready, so I now have to fly back, and I suppose I'm going to have to pay them .

Talking of stars, some scientists have found the biggest star seen to date. Unfortunately it's so bright and big that if I posted a picture of it, your monitor could melt

But if you want to risk it, have a look at this BBC article

It's 265 times the size of our Sun, and the magnitude of its brightness makes out Sun look like our Moon in comparison.

They have called it R136a1 which is a bit boring of them.
.

A link to today's BBC news article about the discovery of a site about 900 metres away from Stonehenge which was another henge (a circular monument) but this one was made from wood which has long gone.

This is a scanned image of the henge showing where the columns would have been.


The finders are calling this the most imporatnt monument found in the UK in the last 50 years. At 900 metres, it is closer to the Woodhenge monument found in 1925 which is about 2 miles from Stonehenge.

I saw that on BBC News yesterday. You would think they could have chosen a better name for it.

Thanks for the link, El Loro. I heard a snippet on BBC Breakfast news, but your link was more informative. I have never been to Stonehenge, but I will go there some day.
I love sites of historical interest and, even as a child, I loved going round old castles and ruins. I think I might be a bit strange.

I did go to Stonehenge some years ago - it was out of season so there was no-one at the visitors centre so I could only see the henge from the road.

Some years afterwards I played a computer point and click adventure game where part of the story took place at Stonehenge. It was quite eerie as they had taken great care to make the scenery including the visiotrs centre as accurate as possible - it was almost as if I was there again.

At the beginning of the week we had the news that the world's oldest champagne had been found on the Baltic seabed. The 30 bottles are thougfht to predate the French revolution.



A bottle has been opened and the champagne is still drinkable.

Then, coincidentally, we get this news per the BBC website

Shackleton's South Pole whisky thawing

A crate of Scotch whisky that has been frozen in Antarctic ice for more than a century is being thawed by museum officials in New Zealand.

The crate, and four others, were found earlier this year beneath the floor of a hut built by explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton during his 1908 expedition.

Four crates were left in the ice but one labelled Mackinlay's was taken to a museum in Christchurch.

Canterbury Museum officials said it was being thawed in a controlled area.

Lizzie Meek from the museum said: "We've got it sitting there at -8C, and for the next few days between now and Monday we're going to just raise the temperature by a couple of degrees each day until we get to zero.

An Antarctic Heritage Trust team which was restoring the hut found the crates in 2006, but could not immediately dislodge them because they were too deeply embedded in the ice.

Scottish drinks group Whyte & Mackay, which now owns the Mackinlay's brand, launched the bid to recover the whisky for samples to test and potentially use to relaunch the now defunct Scotch.

Nigel Watson, executive director of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, said it might be possible to recreate the whisky from the frozen samples.

He said: "It may be that Whyte & Mackay may be able to replicate the original recipe which has been lost, and then people around the world can taste a piece of history."

Watson said the whisky may still be drinkable but would probably not be tasted.

Today's news from the good old Hadron collider:

If the Higgs boson exists in a form known as the charged Higgs, Dr Lucotte explained, the top quark could be crucial to detecting it.

Elementary particles generated at colliders "decay", or transform, into other sub-atomic particles, which may or may not be stable.

The close coupling of the charged Higgs to the top quark means that, if the Higgs boson is heavier than the top quark, it might reveal itself by decaying into a top quark and another particle known as a b-quark.

If the Higgs is lighter, then the top quark might decay into a Higgs and a b-quark.

Ummm, uh yes. Does anyone know what they're talking about. And should the boson be the boojum?

From Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark
In the midst of the word he was trying to say
In the midst of his laughter and glee
He had softly and suddenly vanished away
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

Splish splash splosh from the BBC site

New ponds 'attract' rare wildlife

The creation of new freshwater ponds in Britian is having a positive impact on wildlife, the Environment Agency says.

The regulator is involved in charity Pond Conservation's plan to replace or restore the 500,000 ponds said to have been lost in the past century.

It says biodiversity has rapidly improved in the 234 ponds it has worked on so far this year.

Some 80 threatened species of aquatic insects, amphibians and plants are said to rely on the ponds for survival.

Wildlife including water voles, natterjack toads and great crested newts have all been spotted in the new ponds, the Environment Agency said

The toothed threadwort, tadpole shrimp and one-grooved diving beetle should all be among the species to benefit from the creation of so much habitat, it added.

The Environment Agency says it will work with other organisations including the Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust to create new ponds every year, despite the current pressure on public finances.

'Instant gratification'

The Million Ponds Project aims to see number of ponds in Britain back up around the million mark, last seen 100 years ago.

As part of the scheme, the Environment Agency has this year created 184 ponds and restored a further 50 that were in poor condition.

The work included the creation of more than 30 ponds in a previously contaminated landscape at the former Wheal Jane tin mine near Truro, Cornwall.

Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, said: "Halting the loss of Britain's precious native species is a huge challenge, and an urgent one."

He added: "Ponds are incredibly important for hundreds of plants and animals, and also help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"They are remarkably easy to create and, done in the right way, they will provide almost instant gratification as they quickly become very valuable habitats, supporting a wide range of species."

The Environment Agency has also suggested that this year's dry weather and low water levels in ponds presents an opportunity to clear out invasive plants and excess silt to encourage more wildlife.

Did you watch Halcyon River Diaries (BBC1 on Sunday evenings) a few weeks ago?
I remember Philippa Forrester getting really excited when she found evidence that water voles had made their home in the river, near her house.
Apparently, the water vole is one of Britains fastest declining mammals, so anything being done to encourage their numbers is a good thing.

No, I missed that.

And the Hello Ratty was my little addition to the article.

A gigantic tapestry 104 metres long was unveiled today. It is called the Prestonpans Tapestry and celebrates Bonnie Prince Charlie's journey from France to his victory at Prestonpans. It is longer than the Bayeaux tapestry (70 metres).

This is a link to the the Prestonpans Tapestry website where you can see the individual panels and also a Tapestry Parade page which lists where it will be exhibited, mainly in Scotland of course, but ventures south of the border to Derby for a couple of days in December.

It would be pointless to attempt to put a picture of the tapestry here

I guessed that.

Yogi, are you likely to go and see that tapestry as it seems to be showing in lots of places in Scotland?

I have checked out the intended route and places where it will be on display.
The nearest place to me is Stirling, so I don't think I'll get to see it.

Maybe, one day it will be shown nearer where you live.

Apparently a rare animal called an otter civet has been filmed for the first time in Borneo.
Today's BBC article says:

An elusive mammal known as an Otter civet has been filmed in the wild for the first time, experts believe.

Conservationists surveying wildlife in the Deramakot Forest Reserve in the state of Sabah, Borneo took video of a pair crossing a road at night.

Otter civets are a type of civet, small primitive long-bodied cat-like mammals.

The announcement follows the rediscovery of the world's rarest otter in Deramakot Forest Reserve by the same scientific survey.

"I guess nobody can say this with 100% certainty, but as far as I know this is the first video ever taken of this species," says Mr Andreas Wilting, leader of the Conservation of Carnivores in Sabah (ConCaSa) project initiated by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and performed in collaboration with the Sabah Wildlife Department and Sabah Forestry Department.

"I and my colleagues at least have never seen a video before."

Mr Wilting's team spotted the Otter civets (Cynogale bennettii) along a old logging road, watching as one fed upon an insect.

The Otter civet is thought to be the rarest civet species in southeast Asia.

They show a very short clip, but copying BBC clips doesn't work in the wasy that Youtube clips do. So I had a look on Youtube and found the same clip which was was posted in May last year. So this is hardly breaking news as the BBC claims.

And another story today from the BBC website: By the way in case you wonder if posting these stories is a breach of copyright, it isn't as the BBC is effectively owned by the public, and the BBC specifically provides on its pages the means to copy to Twitter and Facebook and to share and email the stories with others.

Dogs 'mimic movements of owners'

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

Dogs "automatically imitate" the body movements of their owners, according to a study.

This automatic imitation is a crucial part of social learning in humans.

But Austrian researchers report that the phenomenon - where the sight of another's body movement causes the observer to move in the same way - is evident in many other animals.

They say that it reveals clues about how this type of learning evolved.

The study, which was led by Dr Friederike Range from the University of Vienna in Austria, also suggests that the way in which people interact with and play with their dogs as they are growing up shapes their ability to imitate.

"It's not a spontaneous thing," said Dr Range. "The dogs needed a lot of training to learn it."

She and her colleagues investigated this imitation with a series of trials using a simple door-opening test.

The team built a box with a sliding door on the front that could be opened with a knob.

The owners demonstrated how to open the door by using either their hand or their mouth.

"When the owners used the hand, the dog had to open the door with its paw to get a reward," Dr Range said.

When the owner opened the door with their mouth, the dog had to use the same technique.

Dr Range explained to BBC News: "A second group of dogs had to learn the alternative method - if the owner used their hand, they had to use their mouth, and when the owner used their mouth, they had to use the paw."

'Mirror neurons'

The dogs that had to imitate the same action as their owner learned their task far more quickly.

This showed that the dogs had a predisposition to imitate their owners' hand/paw and mouth/muzzle movements.

She noted that, because dogs have a very different body shapes to people, they also had to interpret what they saw.

"This type of learning has obvious evolutionary advantages for animals," Dr Range said. "They can learn about certain aspects of life without having to learn by trial and error, which always comes with some risk."

The new evidence supports a theory of learning which suggests that a system of "mirror neurons" and the capacity to imitate are forged as an animal learns and develops, rather than this system being inborn.

A story from the BBC that kangaroos, koalas, possums and wombats originally came from America.

The characteristic koalas, kangaroos, possums and wombats of Australia share a common American ancestor, according to genetic research from Germany.

A University of Muenster team drew up a marsupial family tree based on DNA.

Writing in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology journal, they suggest a single marsupial species moved from the Americas to Australia.

Marsupials differ from other mammals in that mothers carry their young in a pouch after birth.

As well as the familiar Australian species, the family includes the opossums and shrew opossums of North and South America, and also has a presence in Asian countries including Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

"I think this is pretty strong evidence now for the hypothesis of a single migration [to Australia] and a common ancestor," said Juergen Schmitz, one of the research team.

And another wildlife story from the BBC. (And I don't mean that endangered species known as Homo Magnus Frater, generally only seen in a zoo )

Cheetah will run again in India

The cheetah, eradicated in India by hunting nearly a century ago, will run again in the country, as three sites are earmarked for its reintroduction.

The government has approved wildlife groups' recommendations of two sanctuaries in Madhya Pradesh and an area in Rajasthan as potential homes.

The government will spend 30m rupees ($0.6m; £0.4m) to restore these sites before the animals are imported.

The plan is to import the cats from Africa, Iran and the Middle East.

Kuno Palpur and Nauradehi wildlife sanctuaries in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and Shahgarh area in Jaisalmer, in the northern state of Rajasthan, have been selected as the sites to house the animals.

Trophy hunters

Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said the reintroduction of the world's fastest land animal would "restore the grasslands" of India.

Wildlife experts say the two sanctuaries in Madhya Pradesh had the capacity to accommodate nearly 80 cheetahs, although 23 human settlements will have to be moved from the one in Nauradehi.

Scores of nomadic human settlements would also have to be cleared at the site in Rajasthan on the international border with Pakistan.

"The return of the cheetah would make India the only country in the world to host six of the world's eight large cats and the only one to have all the large cats of Asia," MK Ranjitsinh of Wildlife Trust of India told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Pursued by trophy hunters and herdsmen to the brink of extinction during the Raj, the Asiatic cheetah vanished from India many decades ago.

Conservationists say less than 100 of the critically endangered subspecies remain in Iran, roaming the central deserts.

The vast majority of the 10,000 cheetahs left in the world are in Africa.

Critics of the reintroduction scheme in India say that without restoring habitat and prey base, and reducing the scope for man-animal conflict, viable cheetah populations will not flourish.

Aye - No Corrida   (Corrida being Spanish for bullfight)

Great news from Spain where Catalonia has banned bullfighting. I utterly hate bullfighting - killing animals for entertainment is an abomination in my view.

An extract only from the BBC news article as the full article contains a bullfighting photo.

The Catalan parliament voted to ban bullfighting in an emotional session packed full of deputies, activists and observers, says the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Barcelona.

In the end the vote passed by an absolute majority - a wider margin of victory than animal rights campaigners had dared hope for.

Sixty-eight deputies voted in favour of the ban; 55 were opposed.

He admits he had expected a closer call.

"It means the politicians here actually get it. Bullfighting has no place in the 21st Century. I could not hold back my tears," he said.

He was not the only one. As the result was announced, those supporting the ban leapt and shouted for joy. Alongside them, some of the losers cried too - in frustration

Not to be sniffed at. From the BBC:

Scientists have developed a device that allows people with severe disabilities to control a wheelchair by sniffing.

Researchers from Israel have also used it to help patients who are completely paralysed to communicate.

Sniffing is controlled by the soft palette, which receives signals directly from the brain rather than from the spinal column.

The team said it allowed paralysed people to communicate, in one woman's case for the first time in 10 years.

Noam Sobel, professor of neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, said his team was able to build a "sniff controller" by taking advantage of the fact that soft palette is controlled by signals from cranial nerves.

"In fact, it is really simplistic, it is one of the things that I like about our project in that it is low-tech," he told the BBC's Science in Action programme.

"We hypothesised that people would be able to control their soft palette, therefore sniff despite severe injuries."

The control device works by placing a small rubber tube in front of the nostrils, which measures changes in pressure in the nose.

"It enabled paraplegic participants to drive an electric wheelchair through a 'sniff code' as it where," Professor Sobel explained.

"They became surprisingly proficient surprisingly fast, so it turns out to be a very intuitive and easy way to control devices."

I wonder if Lori would like a penguincubator? From the BBC

Picking up Penguins for 75 years

By Clare Matheson Business reporter, BBC News

Tales of the man who founded Penguin 75 years ago, conjure up the image of an eccentric character from one of the publisher's books.

Sir Allen Lane was the man who used a fairground slide to drop deliveries to his company (then based in a crypt) and came up with the Penguincubator - a vending machine for the firm's books to be installed on train platforms.

Stories differ as to whether this machine was ever made, with some reports suggesting at least one machine was installed at Charing Cross Station in London.

But as current Penguin chief executive and chairman John Makinson chats about the brand, he touts Sir Allen as the man who changed the reading habits of a nation.

Distinctive

"When Allen Lane founded Penguin in 1935 he had a pretty simple, but pretty radical idea: make great literature available to everyone at an affordable price and for it to appeal not just to the wallet, but to literary taste and the eye, with beautifully designed jackets and style," says Mr Makinson.

"Although they were not the first paperbacks, they were truly innovative and captured the imagination."

In fact, the company's distinctive branding has captured the heart of the public so much it is now available on items ranging from deck chairs to mugs.

The definitive branding of a "dignified but flippant" symbol - a penguin - was suggested by Lane's secretary and an office junior was dispatched to London Zoo's penguin house to come up with some ideas.

The design from the then 21-year-old Edward Young is a marketer's dream today.

Brand value

"Merchandising, if you have a brand like Penguin, is marvellous. It's a win-win and generates revenue," says Mr Makinson.

"We have to be careful not to compromise the brand, there's certain things we wouldn't put it on, but if you're careful, it reinforces Penguin as one of the only British brands that the public really does identify."

And as Penguin has spread its wings overseas, the black and white symbol has lost none of its shine.

"It's a magical name," says Mr Makinson. "In China, people literally stroke the business card, and that magnetic appeal seems to be universal wherever we go.

"We're about to launch Penguin Classics in Brazil and we have absolutely no history in Brazil at all. We sell a few books to tourists, yet the launch of Penguin Classics in Brazil has become an enormous media event."

And media events - albeit controversial ones - are nothing new to Penguin or its founder.

The publisher was catapulted into the headlines in the 1960s when Lane decided to print DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in full as a Penguin Classic.

Not only did the ensuing obscenity trial - which Penguin won - mark a turning point in British censorship laws, but it also led to two million copies of the novel flying off the shelves within six weeks.

Penguin is still grabbing headlines, with controversial books such as Salman Rushdie's the Satanic Verses in its catalogue - and with its decision to publish Deborah Lipstadt's book Denying the Holocaust, which accused David Irving of Holocaust denial.

Mr Irving sued for libel, but lost the case in 2000. The widely publicised trial left the controversial historian bankrupt, as it landed him with a £2m legal bill.

Books and bytes

But while Penguin will forever be associated with the orange jacket and bird logo, where will it go in the future?

Well, it has certainly not abandoned its innovative edge and is still embracing new technologies.

Yet Mr Makinson is "very mindful" of any comparisons between the publishing world and the music industry, which has seen a steady decline in the sale of physical CDs.

"The two are very different in an important number of ways: people don't want to buy books in chapters, unlike singles, so we shouldn't suffer the fate of the album," he adds.

"There's also nothing cool about owning enormous quantities of e-books," he says, while admitting he has a number of e-readers at home that come in handy for when he is on his travels, as they take up so little room.

And for the readers of the future, digital books will play a vital role as children today become ever more familiar with the world of technology.

"For the children's market, the iPad is fantastic. On the iPad in the US, there was only one book pre-loaded and that was our edition of Winnie The Pooh," Mr Makinson adds.

Adopting future technology is a key plank of the group's strategy, especially with the boss predicting e-books will begin to overtake physical books, something he says has happened in the US "in a big way".

But above all, he says the key to the business is that the "public still has a love affair with books, the physical product".

"It's an emotional relationship in a way that we don't have any longer with the CD.

"We've got to continue to try to emphasise the desirability of a physical book - the design, quality of printing, inventiveness in children's books and strong design culture - and we need to keep investing in that."

And from a man who has just confessed to owning his own small independent book shop in eastern England, he should know what the buying public wants.

This is an interesting article indicating that moderate drinking helps reduce the risk and severity of rheumatoid arthritis. It's a pity my mother never saw this article years ago as she refused to drink any alcohol and suffered from rheumatoid arthritis.

Drinking alcohol can 'reduce severity' of arthritis

Drinking alcohol can not only ease the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis it appears to reduce disease severity too, research suggests.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield asked two groups of patients with and without the disease to provide details of their drinking habits.

They found that patients who had drunk alcohol most frequently experienced less joint pain and swelling.

Experts say this should not be taken as a green light for drinking more.

In the study, 873 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were compared to 1,004 people who did not have it.

Both groups were asked how often they had drunk alcohol in the month running up to the start of the study.

'Less damage'

Dr James Maxwell, consultant rheumatologist and lead author of the study, explained the findings.

"We found that patients who had drunk alcohol most frequently had symptoms that were less severe than those who had never drunk alcohol or only drank it infrequently."

X-rays showed there was less damage to their joints, blood tests showed lower levels of inflammation, and there was less joint pain, swelling and disability in those patients, the researchers found.

They say they do not yet understand why drinking alcohol should reduce the severity of RA, and people's susceptibility to developing it.

Dr Maxwell said: "There is some evidence to show that alcohol suppresses the activity of the immune system, and that this may influence the pathways by which RA develops.

"Once someone has developed RA, it's possible that the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of alcohol may play a role in reducing the severity of symptoms," he added.

The authors say that further research is needed to confirm the results of the study and to investigate how and why alcohol has an effect on rheumatoid arthritis.

Risk and rewards

Previous studies have shown that alcohol may reduce the risk of developing the disease in the first place.

Similarly, in the current study non-drinkers were four times more likely to develop RA than people who drank alcohol on more than 10 days a month.

A spokeswoman for Arthritis Research UK, which co-funded the research, said: "We would not want people with RA to take this research to mean that they should go out and start drinking alcohol frequently and in large amounts as this could be detrimental to their health."

She said some RA treatments, like the immunosuppressant drug methotrexate, could damage the liver when taken with large amounts of alcohol.

The patients in the study did not drink more than the recommended limit of 10 units of alcohol a week.

Some local news for a change - from the Cheltenham Echo:

Meet the 33-year-old goldfish

WHEN Matthew and Hayley Wright won two goldfish at a funfair in Cheltenham in 1977, they never thought they would still be part of the family 33 years later.

Matthew was just nine years old when he and his six-year-old sister Hayley were taken to Danter's funfair at Cox's Meadow, next to Old Bath Road.

They returned home with their prizes – named Splish and Splash – and put them in a Pyrex bowl.

And the pets are still happily swimming in their tank today.

Hayley, now 41, and Matthew, 38, both left home and started their own families, but Splish and Splash have remained a constant in their parents' lives at their home in Wye Road, Brockworth, ever since.

The pair's dad Richard, 66, said: "It's amazing how long they've survived. We never dreamt when the children won the fish they would still be here now.

"We have not given them any kind of special treatment – they just seem to have gone on and on.

"When we first had them we put them in a Pyrex bowl and then an old plastic tank, where they stayed until 2004.

"The whole business of taking the fish out and washing it got too much for us and I went out just after I'd retired and bought a tank with a filter system for them."

William Danter, whose grandfather Billy ran the funfair where Hayley and Matthew won their fish, said he thought they were probably given as prizes in a darts or hook-a-duck competition.

He said: "The fair ran on Cox's Meadow for decades until they put in flood works about six years ago.

"There weren't many different types of game back then.

"I think the fish would have come from a company who distributed them to funfairs around the country.

"They would have been difficult to transfer around so it could have come from a local source.

"We don't give goldfish away any more, it's become a bit of a political and cultural no-no."

Although remarkable, Splish and Splash are some way off setting a new world record.

It is thought Britain's oldest goldfish, called Tish, died in 1999 at the age of 43 after being won by a woman from Yorkshire at a fair in 1956.

Richard, a retired human resources consultant, said: "Splish and Splash's new tank is about 18in long, 9in deep and 1ft high. I call it their retirement home.

"We just feed them normal goldfish food, nothing special, but they seem to have thrived on it because over the years they've grown to 5in long.

"In the past few years they have lost their gold colour and are now silvery, but otherwise they look fine. I don't know why they have done so well, but they have."

Richard said that Hayley and Matthew soon lost interest in the fish and it was down to their mum and dad to look after them.

"Matthew is probably more interested now than he was then because he keeps tropical fish as a hobby these days," said Richard.

"Our two grandchildren, Ethan, who's seven, and Owen, who's three, love seeing the fish when they come to visit.

"Perhaps Splish and Splash will still be around when they are grown up."

Common goldfish normally last for between five and 15 years, depending on their living conditions.

Andrew Parr, manager of Bloodworth's pet store in Bath Road, Cheltenham, said he had heard of fish living to 20 or 25 years of age. He said: "It all comes down to how well the fish are looked after and what size tank you have. It is quite an achievement to live to 33."

Lisa Ashford-Smith, manager of The Aquatic Habitat, in Brockworth, said: "If parents come in with their young children and ask how long they will live we say 'you'll take them to university with you'.

"If they're kept in an aquarium you might expect them to last 15 to 20 years but to be swimming strong aged 33 is impressive.

More from the BBC:

The dentures, sold by Keys in Aylsham, had been expected to fetch a maximum of £5,000 at the sale on 29 July.

The teeth were owned by the son of dental technician Derek Cudlipp who made them, but he decided to sell.

They were specially constructed to preserve Churchill's natural lisp and were so important he carried two with him at all times.

Keys' valuer Andrew Bullock said the wartime premier suffered from terrible teeth and gums and needed complicated dentistry from childhood.

Churchill valued so highly the skill of his dentist, Wilfred Fish, who worked with Mr Cudlipp, that he nominated him for a knighthood.

And Mr Cudlipp's son, Nigel, said his father's work was so important to Churchill the World War II prime minister would not let him join up to fight.

"When my father's call up papers came, Churchill personally tore them up," he said.

"Churchill said that he would be more important to the war effort if he stayed in London to repair his dentures."

The delicacy and special design of the teeth were widely credited with helping Churchill speak clearly and effectively, said Mr Bullock.

The false teeth were bought by a private collector from Gloucestershire.(not me, I don't need false teeth )

The collector is believed to own a number of items of Churchill memorabilia, including the microphone he used when announcing the end of the war.

Can't see this car being of much use here in the UK (from the BBC site):

I wonder if I will find a copy of William Shakespeare's First Folio of plays amongst my parents' book collection. I somehow doubt it, but it would be worth a bit.
From the BBC site:

An antiques dealer has been jailed for eight years for handling a stolen copy of Shakespeare's first folio.

Raymond Scott, 53, from County Durham was cleared of stealing the treasure, but found guilty of handling stolen goods at a trial in June.

The 1623 work was taken from a display cabinet at Durham University in 1998.

Judge Richard Lowden called the folio "quintessentially English treasure" and said damage to it was "cultural vandalisation".

The case related to one of the surviving copies of the 17th Century compendium of Shakespeare's plays.

It was handed in by Scott to the world-renowned Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC a decade later.

It was alleged Scott hoped to sell the treasure at auction and share the money with friends in Cuba.

Passing sentence, Judge Richard Lowden said: "You are to some extent a fantasist and have to some degree a personality disorder and you have been an alcoholic.

"It is clear that from the (psychiatric) report you are not suffering from any mental disorder."

Judge Lowden said that Scott had either deliberately damaged the book himself or was party to its damage.

He added: "It would be regarded by many as priceless but to you it was definitely at a very big price and you went to very great lengths for that price.

"Your motivation was for financial gain.

"You wanted to fund an extremely ludicrous playboy lifestyle in order to impress a woman you met in Cuba.

"Your Cuban friends were brought in to provide support for your elaborate scheme."

During the trial, the jury heard experts from the US quickly suspected the book was stolen and called in the British Embassy, Durham Police and the FBI.

They discovered the artefact was an incredibly rare example of the folio, regarded as one of the most important works of literature ever printed.

Scott was given a six-year prison term for handling stolen goods and two years' imprisonment - to run consecutively - for removing stolen property from Britain.

The court heard that he had 25 previous convictions dating back to 1977, mainly for dishonesty.

He was unemployed, living off benefits, and until recently had been living with his elderly mother.

Scott, of Manor Grange, Wingate, was arrested in June 2008.

He declined to give any evidence in his defence during his three-week trial.

The folio has now been returned to Durham University.

Vice-chancellor Chris Higgins said it would initially be put on display in its present condition so people could see the damage done to it following its theft.

"The main book is intact but the title leaf, which showed ownership by Durham's Cosin's Library from Shakespeare's day, was torn out and the binding was cut off with a knife," he said.

"This was blatant cultural vandalism akin to taking a knife to Constable's The Hay Wain.

"Over the next year, it will be conserved with great care by Durham University following advice from some of the country's expert conservators."

 

As the article says, the binding and title leaf was removed which reduces the value of the folio, probably by a few million - this is one of the most serious acts of vandalism in this country. There are about 228 folios in existence, but only 40 complete. The other side of the title play shows the address to the reader - a complete folio would show this:

I haven't popped in here for a few days and have enjoyed reading back.
I think Catalonia banning bullfighting is a big step forward and hope the rest of Spain follow very soon.
I love the story of Churchill and his dentures. I can just picture him telling the dentist that it was more important to the war effort if he stayed in London to look after his dentures.
What a character he was.
Re long-living goldfish. Many years ago my uncle claimed to have given the kiss of life to his long-living and very large goldfish, which then lived for another few years. My uncle is loveable but